Information retrieval is becoming a major technical problem, in that the amount of information available makes it difficult to locate the information sought and increases the man-hour costs of the user performing a search. In addition, a larger amount of information requires greater specialisation and subject knowledge from the user performing the search. Consequently, the sector is looking for new techniques so that searches meet the needs of users and facilitate their work. European patents EP1193625B1, EP0922260B1 and ES2173752 refer to processes, systems and devices for information search. Since the object is to reduce the number of man-hours required to find the information sought, interfaces are an important and integral part of said systems, collaborating in the technical task of facilitating the search. Patent EP0328831B discloses interface elements similar to some of those used in the present invention.
General search engines, such as Google, Yahoo!, etc. attach more importance to the volume of information located than to the accuracy thereof. Consequently, huge amounts of operator time are often required to check information units until an information unit is found that meets the needs of the operator. Depending on the characteristics of the search engine, said engines comprise a user interface having a text input zone (usually known as a “text box”) which corresponds to a search request, a command that can be operated (usually known as a “button”) to start the search and a list display zone (“list box”) to show the results.
Because of the high level of imprecision of said search engines, they have a separate advanced search interface, which allows the user to add extra restrictions to the search criterion input in the text box, such as AND, OR relations between search character strings, the language of the information unit, field, etc. However, these interfaces and associated processes are not capable of effectively solving the problem of precision and complicate the task of the user, in that any additional restriction involves a new user command, which he must complete and/or operate.
To solve the above-mentioned problem of precision, the use of a dictionary is known. A dictionary is a data structure containing words or phrases known as keywords or categories, each information unit being associated with a keyword. In this case, the search is made initially using manual (user) means on keywords, each keyword giving access to the information units associated with said keyword.
The keywords may comprise character sequences of more than one word.
At a more advanced level, it is known that dictionaries may have a strict hierarchical organisation, in other words, the search engine includes a navigator, such that each “parent” category or keyword gives access to “child” sub-categories or keywords. In other words, the search process comprises a navigation phase in a data structure with a strict data hierarchy.
At interface level, basically, search engines that use dictionaries of a known type also have at least one text box for inputting the search criteria, a list box for showing a list of available keywords and, if necessary, a user-operated command.